Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007-08

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in August 2007, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Proposed additions

This section is for completed requests that a website be blacklisted

Recurring spam on it.wiki

www.cirpet.unito.it/ is a University Research Centre of the University of Turin, Italy. Many articles about eastern countries happen to be repeatedly spammed with this address by several IPs ([1], [2], [3] and other ones - as you can see they all start with 83.184.57.). Probably a serious institution, but being the Centre very likely to be now closed due to holidays season, this might be only a disturbing manoeuvre against the center; however, given the intensive spamming and the consequent amount of required work, I believe this sub-address (not unito.it, only cirpet.unito.it) has to be blocked, anyway. Thank you --Gianfranco 16:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If it only affects it.wiki it is probably best dealt with by the local spam blacklist (any admin can add sites to it). If it is cross wiki then let us have more details. Thanks --Herbytalk thyme 15:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

blocked locally, no news about other spamming on other Projects. Thank you :-) --Gianfranco 17:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

praguedailyphoto.blogspot.com

Hi! I noticed on pms that he did insert the official prague site, too. Maybe this part should be left in place :) I understand they use it to mimetize spam, but why not to use those things that can be saved? :) --Bèrto 'd Sèra 13:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. I agree with Berto, those legitimate links might not be affected with listing those spammed websites ... --Aphaia 16:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

www.cronologia.it

Not spam, but they explicitly forbade us to deep-link their pages (when in the past we ask them permission to publish part of their articles on it:wikipedia).
By blacklisting this site, we'd be certain not to deep-link any of their pages any longer.

Hopefully the IP has stopped spamming by now. Could you please unblock this domain again? Otherwise all articles with genuine links cannot be edited without removing the link :-( Regards, --Birger Fricke 00:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm James McDonald, the webmaster of www.languedoc-france.info. I've been advised that I got added to your spam blacklist and this seems to be true. I checked some of the English links and could not see any that resempbled spam. Perhaps you would care to do the same for a random sample. I've contacted a couple of people - overenthusiastic fans - who might be responsible for adding foereign links, and while denying spamming have undertaken not to add any more. In the circumstances I wonder if you would be kind enough to remove my site from your blacklist. Thanks 66.108.0.58 01:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

A little more information about those "overenthusiastic fans" and "their" editing pattern:

Domains registered to James McDonald that have had links on various Wikiedias; they cover a very broad range of interests:

A small cluster of accounts appear to have added the preponderance of links to these domains. There are a number of overlaps in the sites they choose to link to; the coincidences are striking given the breadth of topics:

Trollwatcher was also apparently adding links to a later-blacklisted "attack site", doubleblue.info, now expired but previously registered to someone with a springald.com e-mail address. This site's content has since been ported to dweec.com (registered to "Malleus Dweecificarum" and "Dweec Hammer" at a bogus Syracuse address and telephone number). See:

Where are the diffs? "Diffs above" are too vaguely. --Aphaia 04:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Aphaia, I spent many hours researching and writing up the report immediately above this one (i.e., Talk:Spam blacklist#languedoc-france.info). I did not wish to waste my time or other readers' time repeating it all again in this request. If you want all the details behind my request, I think if you go that post, you'll see what you are looking for.

Thanks for your help on this. --A. B.(talk) 15:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

These looks like an issue - I see that an involved ip in the range is now removing krakow.pl. Has it been assessed that this site is valid? If the other site is not valid then action against some would be unreasonable --Herbytalk thyme 07:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

*.bypainters.com and *.jeditoo.com

The following discussion is closed.

Numerous additions of links to these two web sites on various articles. They have all been reverted on the English and French pages at the time of writing. They have invaded several other Wikipedias. The second one, identified as spam was later renamed into bypainters (on he 24th of May 2007) to escape detection. Vincent Lextrait 16:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Please provide evidence of cross wiki spamming so that it can be evaluated - thanks --Herbytalk thyme 11:15, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, well there were the 31 July additions[92][93][94][95] just before my 5 August request. And then there are these new links that have appeared since my 5 August cross-wiki link removal. --A. B.(talk) 21:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sundial-link

The following discussion is closed.

A link to http://www.mysundial.ca/tsp/tsp.html The Sundial Primer is regularly added to no:Solur and de-wikipedia Sonnenuhr and other articles on same subject in different languanges. Can this be blocked centrally? Noorse 01:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Done can't get Eagle's tool to work but the other one shows cross wiki spamming as far as I am concerned --Herbytalk thyme 11:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

What on earth is the objection to Carl Sabanskis site- apart from pitiful use of HTML! It is by far the most authorative site available on the subject and is an essential link. If the problem lies with someones bot please get that sorted- but remove this destructive blacklisting it does no credit the reputation of Wikipedia. I will cross post this other sites that have referred me here. En:User:ClemRutter. 90.0.239.102 14:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

If you take a look at the links provided you will see that this site has links placed frequently and removed frequently on a number of wikis. The fact that the link is removed consistently by the community on those wikis means that they do not require it. If there were a valid need on a particular wiki then the site could be whitelisted there but the behaviour shown above must be considered spamming. --Herbytalk thyme 14:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

When I removed some of the links earlier today I noticed that 3 local Wikipedia communities had had to lock articles to stop the spamming of the link (cs,no, lt). I also noticed the link was debated on en.wikipedia and left a message there saying that if they wanted to keep the link they could try to have it added to their local whitelist. The spamming of the link has been a problem on sevral Wikipedias, that is the reason it was blacklisted. --Jorunn 20:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

reset

Yes as far as I am concerned there is ample evidence of disruption across wikis (when articles need to be protected for example). This is in the list and will remain unless there is an appeal which may be considered by others. Thanks --Herbytalk thyme 08:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

totaltf2.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2 is beginning to get the "up and coming" links, but these guys keep adding it via an IP (no account) including 72.189.208.139 and 87.74.128.86 and will not use talk to justify. Otherwise, there will be 1000 "fan websites" all that have "just as much right as the other links". 3rd strike for these guys. Pharmboy 13:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Now it seems a new puppet, [[97]] is doing the same. Three Four times adding without a summary after being asked. Person is very determined to get his link. I have added notes in his talk as well, just keeps adding link, no summary that justifies. Appears not interested in policy. Total of 7 relists at this time with no summary or response at talk. Pharmboy 00:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello,

I am completely sorry for spamming this site. I have not been trying to spam you, just include our site in the list of communities? I registered but have been unable to email you as your link is turned off and have been unable to work out how to explain what has been going on. As you can tell I'm really new to wikis..?!!?

I have removed our link myself now I can see that its an admin removing the link. Someone on my site was saying this happens by competeing websites so I presumed that was what was happening.

On one occassion I left my email address on the link in the hope someone would contact me.

Anyway, I see now that I've got 3 strikes without even knowing it :(

Hoping you will reconsider, my appologies. I will leave it upto you to include our link. I hope very much you do. We're a non-profit making fansite with probably the most TF2 and a great community.

Sorry again

CK

The problem is that EVERY site like your wants to be linked on Wikipedia, and there are policies as to what sites are or are not "link worthy". It isn't about how cool your site is, or about your worth, it is about an objective standard. It is about what is recognized by others, over time, and new sites just don't fit that bill. Actually, there have been 7 times someone has posted against a request to talk. I don't use email on Wikipedia because that is the reason that the TALK exists. I don't need private messages, all debates about a site should happen in plain site, open to all. I kept leaving you messages, in your talk, their talk, in the summary of the edit, but you refused to talk or learn the policy. Since I don't see the site being link worthy soon, I would maintain that the potential for abuse exists and would maintain my position in the matter. Pharmboy 23:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Like I said it was my mistake. I appologise.

Some of use arent so up on the wiki law and I still have no idea how to "talk" via wiki, which I know is my bad. :( As far as the links go we have the most uptodate info anywhere esp. compared to whats already linked so maybe you will reconsider in the future. I was re-adding as I thought it was being removed by another website admin. I had not noticed any warnings and had registered a few days ago here to try to sort this. It was completely my bad wiki skills that got me in this mess. I have also had some of my webby users add the website as they think its the "only" real all-in-one TF2 resource about. I really hope it'll appear sometime, I really didnt try to spam your site on purpose. Perhaps as totaltf2.com grows and becomes the main TF2 hang-out it'll get reconsidered.

Sorry for any hassle I caused and all the best.

CK

Still people trying to add this new site and I can only see solution as banning. Pharmboy 00:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Pharmboy, I have asked in my forums that NO ONE tries to add this site as we've been banned. This is not my actions. I really feel that this is a harsh action against my site especially as one of the sites listed has such out of date info. No other site has the detail we have on our site about TF2.

I am no longer adding my site here and I really dont see why the site needs banning. Sure dont list the site but dont stick me on the blacklist. I cant stop ppl adding the site. I'm sure you can see the submitting IP's and will be able to tell it is not me adding the site now I know you dont want it linked.

I hope you can appreciate when you put hundreds of hours into coding and collating the latestest info on a game, then your users think you should be wiki-listed and are adding it themselves, it can be quite frustrating to be threatened with being banned. I think this is really harsh action against the best TF2 info site and I'd apprciate an alternative wiki admin to review this problem.

Thanks, I can confirm the 87. IP range is myself including the totaltf2 name I registered here to try and get in contact with an admin. The 74. ip address and the kamulako account are unknown to me.

Like I said im not going to touch this wiki page again... its really frustrated me that my site is being classed as spam when its the best TF2 community going.

CK out...

I just removed it again, and the fact remains that it is a new, unknown site, and a variety of individuals are continuously adding in a way that is spam. The case for delete is just as strong, as it is obvious that someone (you or whoever) will continually be adding this link that doesn't belong. I lose count of how many times it has been added and removed and EACH time a reason is given for removal, and EACH time there is no legitimate summary and all the owners/fans/whoever are showing a complete disregard for policy. That total strangers with no vested interest are just contiuously monitoring and re-adding for no reason doesn't make sense to me. Pharmboy 15:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Since the alleged owner can't stop people from adding it, and understands that it doesn't belong here because it is a new site, and giving him the benefit of the doubt under Wikipedia:Good Faith, then the only logical conclusion is to finally ban the site. Banning it won't hurt the site as it isn't a legitimate link for any article (per the owner saying he is not adding the site here anymore above.) Continuing to allow it causing a series of edits back and forth, sometimes a few times in a day, and is disruptive. Lets please just be done with it. Pharmboy 15:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have continued to ask my users in the forums to NOT add the site. Perhaps its being added because its the only uptodate fansite on the game. TFportal.de is listed yet has false and almost laughable information. I appreciate we are fairly new but has anyone actually compared these sites. The majority of TFportal.de is NOT TF2 related and yet ours is. Perhaps another TF2 site admin is adding the site daily to get me banned or perhaps its just being added by users because it should be listed on the wiki. It is completely out of my control and yet I get penalised by being banned.

Final Comment Calling other linked websites "laughable" is an opinion, and demonstrates part of the problem. The purpose of the submission is to determine if the website is being improperly added in a disruptive way, which it clearly is and the history demonstrates this. I'm not going to argue about which site is better or worse, as I don't care and it is not relevant.

I think we are beating this horse to death: You blame others, you say you aren't adding it, you more or less admit the site is too new to be notable within the community yet, but you say it is punishing you somehow if the system blocks others from adding it to prevent edit wars. Your continuing edits show distain for other websites and indicate that you will continue, and I'm not going to enter a pissing match. The history speaks for itself. It is in the admins hands now. Pharmboy 21:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The only admin who has commented so far is Pharmboy.?!

I have no idea with the etiquettes of wiki-rules which I have applogised for from the start of this. I am not a Wiki user.

If ppl want to add my site then I have no control over it. PLEASE continue to check the IP's to see its not me. I'm UK based.

I am not adding the site to wiki.

Will this site appear on the wiki eventually when it becomes obvious this is the main TF2 community?

CK

I am not an admin, or I would have just added it. Please read the policies. Pharmboy 02:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

"I don't care and it is not relevant" - I thought the whole idea of wiki's was to list correct information. I think this IS the problem. I have asked if this site can be submitted in the future yet still no answer. Where can I submit a complaint about this redicoulous decision?

Hi, is there any news on getting our website unbanned and listed on the wiki? We now have support from the developers of the game and are holding an interview with them. We also have the most TF2 infromation in one place. It would be great to see this website now listed on the wiki.

Comment Instead of news, you should try reading how this process actually works. Wikipedia is all volunteer and nothing happens in a single day, on purpose. What is more worrying is the fact that you are flatly saying you are going to link the site again, which is why we are here, and you refuse to even look at policy about what is appropriate in an encyclopedia, since listing your personal blog/website is obvisouly your only goal for Wikipedia. You seem to miss the entire point of why "a new up and coming" clan/blog website doesn't belong in external links, and why the domain simply needs to be banned before it sets off another edit war. Pharmboy 12:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

You've had two editors here point out that this site is inappropriate. If you want further opinions, you can go to Wikiproject Spam, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a favourable opinion. Pharmboy is just applying the rules, as will others.

In the meantime, your site does not meet the guidelines I cited and it has been spammed in contravention of multiple requests not to do so. It's a classic candidate for the blacklist so it will be blacklisted once the backlog here is cleared up.

You mention that there are other, less appropriate TF2 sites with links on Wikipedia. Please feel free to remove links that do not meet our rules (see above). We have about 3 million external links with hundreds of thousands that are unsuitable; Pharmboy is running way behind on deleting them all. --A. B.(talk) 13:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply.

I will indeed study the links you provided to see exactly why it doesnt meet the standards you mention, to be included under a "community" tab?!

@ Pharmboy, its so obviously not a clan site or blog, if you would actually take a moment to look at it. Its a complete TF2 info community site which is why I was listing it under the "community" tab. I have also STATED that I wont relist the site and have asked on my forums the site is NOT added?!

@A. B. Thanks and understood. The frustration has been caused by the other listed communities which contain 1% of the information we do, remaining on the wiki. This suggested pharmboy was flexing his "powers" and not actually reading what I was trying to explain. I have never intentionally spammed the wiki. If it indeed doesnt meet the standards lets get tfportal.de on the banlist too huh?

Again, I have no more "powers" than you, I just try to read, apply and follow the rules here. I agree with taking tfportal.de off the external links. If you want to put them up for banning, go ahead. This doesn't change why totaltf2.com is here. Pharmboy 15:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Given the exchange at www.totaltf2.com/off-topic/92-total-tf2-wikipedia.html, it looks as if this campaign was not totally under the site-owner's control (Yes, I know that's what he tried to tell us, but then we hear that all the time on this page and it's usually untrue). I suggest blacklisting it locally on en.wikipedia. The effect will be the same on en.wikipedia, but blacklisting there doesn't carry the problems for site-owners that blacklisting here does (this global blacklist is also used by non-Wikimedia sites in compiling their own blacklist filters). Normally, I prefer global blacklisting if a problem is so stubborn it requires blacklisting at all, but this may be a special case. --A. B.(talk) 16:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Reading the actual words from CK (the site's admin and the protestor here) in the link you supplied reinforces the reason we are here to begin with. I don't think it is about malice, but it clearly will not go away on its own. I think your recommendation to blacklist it locally on en.wikipedia is enough to deal with the problem and would request an admin consider it as soon as practical. Pharmboy 17:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I really have asked that we are NOT relisted. I still think it would be nice for wiki and us to have the quality link HOWEVER i dont want the blacklisting to effect my site. We've put some major work into it and its not run by kids or idiots. Its just everything TF2. We've even got valve onside and are giving us an exculsive interview.

By all means dont include my site on the wiki but please dont cause issues for the site to be blacklisted everywhere. Like I've said, I'm new to wiki and dont understand the ethics / laws behind it. All I'm now concerned about is if this will effect search engine issues. Thanks for finally understanding my concerns and the fact im not lying.

Hello, I'm a coder of by-the-way discussed page TFPortal.de, and I've discovered this discussion by accident. When reading about the quality of TFPortal's content I've visited TotalTF2's website - just to see that they (TotalTF2) completely and nearly verbatim copied our (TFPortal's) content.

It is extremely ridiculous to call our information "false and almost laughable", but on the other hand copy it. Just wanted to let you know - maybe this can help you in your decision whether TotalTF2 should be banned.

I've just noticed that totaltf2 has taken off TFPortal.de from the site. IMHO that's showing that he still hasn't understood the wiki ethics and is enforcing an edit war here. pharmboy's comment when taking off TotalTf2.com was "Site is being debated for permanant ban. "new and upcoming" sites don't belong here."

TFportal.de / Teamfortress2.de is existing for years now and is established in the community. I would be happy to see it back in the "Community" links. Thanks in advance.

Ah look who's now turned up... It all becomes very clear where these spamming problems have arrisen.

Our site is our own content unless a source is quoted. When the site was originally created we did use all sources on the net to get stock pages such as about and tech up. However these were updated to display correct information as the site grew. Its fairly obvious our sites will have similar content [such as about and tech pages], as they are both about the same game huh?

This is not the place to start a "who's site is best". I'm pointing out that your site had been left on the wiki with incorrect inforamtion yet ours has been blacklisted. My appologies for calling it laughable, perhaps a little harsh on my behalf.

I'm now truely sick of the wiki listing issues and the underhand goings-on to get us blacklisted.

PLEASE ban our site from the wiki, all I ask is that it is not blacklisted that may effect search engine listings.

As I have previously said we have had some stock pages up from all sources on the net, including this wiki, your site, valve etc etc... however these were updated to display correct information as the site grew. It seems obvious to me who is at wiki-war and who has been lurking about causing problems. As the entire articles were edited so they made sense and directly linked to your page it wasnt theft, more like advertising for you guys?!

This page is about blacklisting totaltf2. I, as the site owner, am asking that you DO. I am completely sick of the rivalry and think its best to just enjoy our own sites / communites huh? All I am asking is the blacklisting is local ad doesnt effect search engine listings. Thanks.

STOP THIS This page is for discussion of blocking/banning totaltf2.com only. Take your arguement somewhere else. Don't appologize or give a reason, just take it elsewhere and either stay on topic or don't say anything at all in here. Pharmboy 14:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Pharmboy, but telling others that TotalTF2 is violating copyrights is absolutely on topic, as External Links Guideline reads: "Sites that violate the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked.[...]".

TFportal.de, if you have any problems with content copyright violations please come on our site and pm me. I'm not interested in starting a war with you and this is not the place. There is zero leeched content on our site. Any quoted info is linked. If we rewrite something of yours and add linkage thats not theft. If you didnt like it you should have just asked me to remove it, Im not unreasonable, no need to create all this mess. Now lets get a grip and realise these sites are about a game and this wiki spam page is about my site being not included on the wiki. Really no need for all this. Being new to wiki I'm finding it incredible tbh.

I'm agreeing that our site not be included on the wiki, I really couldnt care less now. This has been madness... all over a website. Now lets move on huh?

Block and Close I hereby request we close this and block totaltf2.com from en.wikipedia, per idea by A. B. that was agreed to by the nominator. Pharmboy 16:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

May I ask, does this effect my website in any way apart from being blocked from being entered on the wiki? Thanks Ck aka 84.9.144.73 22:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)totaltf2

If you were blocked here on the global list, then your links would be be blocked across all 700+ Wikimedia Foundationprojects, all 3,000+ Wikia sites plus hundreds of other, unrelated wikis that run on the same MediaWiki software we use. Also there are rumours that Google and others may sometimes consult our global blacklist when deciding whether to penalize spamdexers in their search rankings.

I'm recommending the local, English-only blacklist instead. If you're blacklisted only on the local English Wikipedia list, then the software blocks your links there but nowhere else. Since you really can't control all your forum members, it's better your site is blacklisted on that local list -- otherwise they might get you put on this global list in their zeal. I don't think much of anyone like Google is consulting the local English blacklist. It's just several weeks old and even most Wikipedia admins don't know it exists. It's presently got just 6 domains on it. --A. B.(talk) 23:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks for the information, what a mess, its ashame we're being classed as spam when the site owners have not spammed anything.

Not done, since only one single wiki is affected currently. It would be more suitable to subject to local blacklist. --Aphaia 04:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought this was what A. B. and everyone had decided would be best to do? Can this not be accomplished with this nom? Pharmboy 18:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope / think that now the "community" listing has been removed no one will try to list our site and therefore no blacklisting is required at all. I think classing our site as spam is such ashame as its not and we've never intentionally spammed this wiki. Totaltf2 is clearly the main TF2 site about atm and I think users have tried to add us to your previous "community" list not to spam the wiki but becuse it looked like it should have been listed their. I also think we've been the victim of some crazy wikiwar. I cant say how pleased I am someone else has read all this crazyness and may help this situation.

I really want closure on this without getting listed on something which may effect our search engine listing. After all we've done nothing wrong here.

Actually it was something wrong that got us here. The request to ban locally is still up in the air. Claiming "Totaltf2 is clearly the main TF2 site" still reinforces the entire idea that you expect to put the site back on the list as soon as possible if no blacklisting happens, and ALL of your comments seem to reflect this. I'm still baffled with your arrogance about this issue when the history (including your comments on your own website, as demonstrated by A.B.) show something different than your statements here. And now claiming that YOU are a victim is pretty bold, particularly when the history is there for everyone to see. Pharmboy 23:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Pharmboy, you seem determined to blacklist my site?? If the wiki has a "community tab" and ppl enter our community on it, then how can we be to blame? Now the "community" listing has gone why would I or anyone want to add the link? It seems to me, the problem was solved when the community tab was removed. I'm not bothered about being listed on the wiki, there is now nowhere to add us. All my concerns are if this spam blacklist will effect my search engine listing.

I understand you get much spam to deal with but our website is not a spam site. Sure deal with the problem, which has been done. Now lets not punish this fansite please. There is zero arrogance from me and I find it now concerning that im being personally attacked over this. If I consider our site as "clearly the main tf2 site", its unfair and unprofessional to presume or suggest that means I'm going to spam the wiki site. Maybe it means I'm just proud of what I created. Both here and on my website I have stated I dont want any problems or issues with the wiki and dont want my community to list us. I'm baffled by this entire episode.

I'll say it again, i dont mind what wiki-action is taken but PLEASE dont effect my search engine listing. I'm not bothered about being entered on the wiki, so do whatever, just dont adversely effect my website by listing it on some ban list for spamming which was out of my control.

Sorry guys, your talk is now totally off topic here. I rejected the request and recommend the requester to submit it to the other place. Complaining to the original request is senseless and somehow disruptive, only preventing to close this case. If you continue to argue about that here, you guys will be also ban from the editing this website. --Aphaia 04:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

suntanning.com spam

Request for block of suntanning.com. Site has been added several times to tanning beds, indoor tanning lotion and sun tanning. Users adding include 64.21.145.82, 71.172.18.74, 66.30.14.122 and have been asked to refrain or justify several times. Person will not leave summary, will not respond to talk, will not refrain from adding link, refusing all attempts to communicate. Can't see how it could be controversial. Pharmboy 15:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the extra help A. B.. Takes a while to learn all the proper methods and such, especially while being an old fart trying to run a dept. all day. didn't realize how much 'business' was involved in the spamming of wikipedia. Companies paying companies to advertise on a website that won't get them better rankings due to NO FOLLOW tags. Seems a waste. Pharmboy 21:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of our spam comes not from big companies but rather entrepreneurs trying to make a buck off of:

Referral revenue -- for instance a link to a book on amazon.com with a commission referral ID embedded in it.

If you peruse various spammer forums, there's an emerging consensus among the better informed, smarter spammers that Wikipedia links are still desirable, but not nearly as valuable as they used to be:

Yahoo Search ignores nofollow.

Many of the 500+ Wikipedia mirrors that scrape our content may not necessarily add nofollow tags. These mirror sites don't carry the ranking juice Wikipedia has, but they're still useful.

Wikipedia still drives traffic (real eyeballs) even if the search engine ranking value is greatly diminished.

Add to that the fact that lots of spammers just haven't gotten the word about nofollow and we still get lots of spam.

My anecdotal impression (not based on statistics or even scientific sampling) is that we're getting less spam of the sort that's motivated by search engine rankings. Also, the people that are still spamming may not be as tenacious and persistent as they were last year. Yes, they'll spam Wikipedia, but it's not as high on their priority list as it used to be.

Another recurring thread on spammer forums is how unreasonable "wiki's sysops" are -- you see the phrase "link nazis" a lot. That's not a bad thing; a high-profile message board participant suddenly complaining about losing a year's worth of links and getting blacklisted has a good deterrent value for us. There's also the recurring rumour that Google may or may not be consulting this blacklist when deciding whether certain sites merit ranking penalties for search engine spamming.

So maybe we're down from a raging torrent to just a bad flood.

I believe strongly (more than most other editors) that the key to spam-reduction is not 3 or 4 warnings followed by blocking a spammer's account but rather 3-4 warnings followed by blacklisting. I've seen admins dance with a spammer for months handing out blocks to new sockpuppets and IPs to spammers to no avail.--A. B.(talk) 01:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

reset

We are back in the "global v local" here. I agree with Pharmboy that these are not likely to be "useful" sites (& if you spam somewhere I'm an admin the first warning you are likley to get is a block!) but can no one get local action on en wp? Equally any evidence of this one across wikis? --Herbytalk thyme 11:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No one on the Stickymap development team has posted links on Wikipedia. We have not used Wikipedia to promote our website, nor have any of us been asked to stop posting links. We do not spam websites or engage in abusive linking practices.

However, we do have a small community of users who are beta testing our software and I suspect that a few of them have been posting links on Wikipedia with only good intentions. I agree with you that some of the links are probably excessive and should be removed. However, I suspect that there are a few that are legitimate and our users may have a few more legitimate ones to add in the future. By blacklisting Stickymap, you would be preventing our entire community of users from posting material on Wikipedia. I believe that the best solution is to speak with each user on an individual basis instead of punishing everyone collectively.

If you believe that there is something that we can do to help with this problem, please do not hesitate to send us an email (which you can get from our blog, blog.stickymap.com) and we'll do our best. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by157.191.2.16 (talk • contribs) .00:39, 16 August 2007

Hi AB. I understand what you're saying here, but I don't think you understand why these were blacklisted. The appropriateness of including these links in Wikipedia may not constitue encyclopedia purpose. I'm not denying the purpose you serve, but I don't see the services as being mutually beneficial, and therefore not essential for interlinking. I'm not the final word, but this is the position of me, as a simple user of the site. lincalinca 07:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out the comment protesting blacklisting was made by an IP address after A.B.s request to blacklist (see [98]) but was not formatted according to our normal practice. I've added an unsigned tag and moved it into chronological order. -- SiobhanHansa 10:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that there are cases in which links from Stickymap would not be appropriate / essential. I feel that each link should be judged on an individual basis and by the behavior of the user who added the link. I do not feel it is fair to blacklist an entire website because of the improper behavior of one or two stickymap fans (from what I can tell, they only placed approx. 20 links over the course of several months). Also, I do not believe that the blacklisting's purpose is to serve as a list of websites that Wikipedia has deemed as providing services that are not mutually beneficial or essential. Instead, the blacklist is used to reprimand/punish websites for abusing Wikipedia by spamming the site. As a policy, Stickymap does not spam websites or engage in abusive linking practices.

Hi Wikipedia Administrators. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm from Stickymap.com and I'd like tell you why I believe our site should not be blacklisted. I've read the wikipedia criteria here - Spam blacklist/About and I believe these links can, and have been, dealt with through other means. First, the linking was only done by 2 IPs (the other 2 are 1 time offenders). If those IPs can be dealt with, then we don't have a problem. I found out about this problem very recently, and we are very concerned about this issue so we decided to launch an internal investigation. We sent out a bunch of emails to some of our frequent registered beta users. One user did step forward and admitted to posting the links. The individual did not understand the rules and policies of wikipedia. This person now realizes that they are hurting our site more than they are helping it, and has promised us that they will not post again. We also posted something on the blog telling users to stop posting. Since that time, there have been no incidences of external linking. I also looked into the histories of the warnings. It appears that the first warning was only 3 days ago on August 13th, and the other warnings came out fairly rapidly. The linking stopped within 36 hours of the first warning. This leads me to believe that the linking has stopped and that no further action is required. Please let us know if there is anything further we must do to correct this problem. You can send an email to admin@stickymap.com, and we are very responsive. Thanks. Maxe

The behaviours of anons mentioned are admittedly disruptive so I am not sure if you can be so persuasive toward them one of their disruption. However it doesn't affect the other projects, I'm inclining to reject this request. It means, I won't oppose enwiki admin will blacklist this. Cheers, --Aphaia 16:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to block these sites? Carlosguitar 00:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Please, do not use direct links, or this page will be locked up when they will be blacklisted. Thanks. --Brownout(msg) 01:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Since your request is concerned with only English Wikipedia, you are better to ask an Enwiki sysop to blacklist those websites locally at first? --Aphaia 21:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

These are a recurring problem dating back to 2005. Since the en.wikipedia hasn't decided on any rules or procedures for managing its blacklist (and most en.wikipedia admins don't yet understand blacklisting or spam), can you perhaps go ahead and list these? Here are a few more sample edit histories:

Among us, there are several meta-nlwiki admins including Andre Engels. They will handle this user better than me inactive there. Also, I noticed your request were a bit old, the situation may vary since then. If they think global blacklisting is better regarding the uptodate situation, I'll be easily persuaded. --Aphaia 17:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This one died and I suggest archiving. I've seen no more problems on en.wikipedia. --A. B.(talk) 15:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

sova-center,ru

The following discussion is closed.

Please add sova-center.ru to spam black list. It is being readded after removal attempts from several articles [100],[101],[102]. Also, that site is advocating racial hatred towards Russian people and is offensive. The leaders of that center have been indicted by Russian authorities for covering up ethnic mafia's gang members.--Ram2006 14:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

sova.center.ru is the web page of an analitical center en:SOVA Center it is a legitimate reference Alex Bakharev 14:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Not done - unconvinced by this one - re-list if persistent or real evidence --Herbytalk thyme 10:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Fiorano Software spam

The following discussion is closed.

This has been an ongoing PR effort on Wikipedia for over 18 months involving both spam links and spam articles.

URL redirect sites traditionally have always been blocked on meta as soon as they're discovered, sort of like open proxies. They can be used to bypass the blacklist and there's no way to know it's happening. Like an open proxy, I strongly recommend blocking preemptively.

If editors want to add innocent links using these domains, they can just instead use the expanded link. For instance:

http:// www.geocities.com/reallylong/subdomain/johndoe.html

may have been shortened to:

http:// johndoe.tinyurl.com

An editor can always just use the longer domain -- unless it's blacklisted.

Typically, 90% of the links added with URL redirects are benign but the other 10% are usually to our worst blacklisted sites -- hate sites, attack sites, sites maintained by egregious POV pushers and/or banned users.

Having said all this, I'm unaware if this is written down as a policy or a guideline anywhere.

--16:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense - I'll go see if I can find previous discussions to support the idea - cheers --Herbytalk thyme 16:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Done - precedent seems to have been set a while ago --Herbytalk thyme 08:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment would be that to blacklist the top level domains might be a bit extreme/controversial - sub domains better? Cheers --Herbytalk thyme 07:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are probably a hundred or sub-domains changing with batch of posts. I can go back through the history if you want to do it that way, but there are lots of them. Let me know if you want be to list them here.

Seems only weldingarea.com was spammed to multiple wikis, but I am not sure two wikis are enough to list a site to this blacklist. Other links seem to me more suitable for being dealt by local admins. --Aphaia 16:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken there are quite a few more domains listed on the Spam project page than there are here? I'll not disagree with Aphaia but some of the domains listed there don't look all that useful to the project --Herbytalk thyme 11:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

None of these domains are useful and none meet the requirements of either the Reliable Sources or External Links Guidelines. The domains I did not list have not appeared ... yet ... on simple or en.wikipedia (that is, to my knowledge), Given the spammer's persistence in adding his domains above, I don't see why we can't expect to see some of these others in the future -- that is unless Google drops its AdSense program or hell freezes over:

allmyringtones.com

allphonegames.com

architectspot.com

arturnikitin.com

bargainhammocks.com

benedict-xvi-pope.com

best-mortgage-quotes.com

best-sex-enhancers.com

best-sunless-tanning.com

bobbleheadfinder.com

breast-enhancement-help.com

buy-cruise.com

cell-phone-wallpapers.com

cellularservicehelp.com

cheap-playstation.com

cheap-x-box.com

closet-world.com

eroticsexylingerie.com

findfurnace.com

freecurrencycalculator.com

freedesktopfun.com

get-degree-online.com

get-fast-money.com

getaircompressors.com

gypsumus.com

hairextensionhelp.com

hybridcartoday.com

kitchen-remodeling-help.com

lastcasket.com

letmeconvert.com

mylogoland.com

mytinybaby.com

mytinyphone.com

mywifiphones.com

online-auto-quotes.com

online-car-quotes.com

order-drugs-online.com

phone-screensavers.com

poolsarea.com

rastagear.com

realfiberglass.com

realtruetones.com

recreational-vehicles-insurance.com

seektires.com

skinarea.com

stressrelievertools.com

thecladdaghrings.com

videoclipcards.com

window-tinting-info.com

I should note that I am only aware of tools on en.wikipedia that will let you determine if a link has been present in the past (2007 only), so I don't know if these have been on other Wikipedias at other times, then been removed.

Multiple spam sites on multiple wiki pages

The following discussion is closed.

There were 20+ sites spammed across multiple pages on my wiki. Please look at my wiki changes page on August 16th to see the affected pages. There are way too many URLs to add to my custom blacklist... Thanks. -68.189.221.83 03:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of there being evidence of spamming across wikis I'm afraid the local blacklist is the best answer - thanks --Herbytalk thyme 15:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

So I have to enter over 100 URLs because you won't? Looks like this spam blacklist is not the answer for spam prevention. Thanks. -- 68.189.221.83 18:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin here, so I can't blacklist anything. But I make a lot of blacklist requests here. Comments:

You're chewing out a volunteer admin, Herby, not someone who's providing you with some paid service.

If you don't care enough to sort out a list of spam domains, why should you expect some volunteer here to do it for you?

I take exception to You're chewing out a volunteer admin, Herby. That is exactly what I am. The link provided affected one wiki. Without evidence the sites should be blacklisted on that wiki. With further evidence I'll go look when I have time but I would ask you to remember that we are all volunteers here. Having a go at me is not an encouragement for me to deal with anything! --Herbytalk thyme 07:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Herby, I was not directing my comment above at you but rather 68.189.221.83. I should have set off your name with parentheses rather than commas:

"You're chewing out a volunteer admin (Herby) not someone who's providing you with some paid service."

I am very sorry about the confusion I caused. --A. B.(talk) 12:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Not done: since it is not relevant to Wikimedia wikis, for now. --Aphaia 13:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

independencia.net

I have cleaned up the many, many links in the other, smaller Wikipedias (those that aren't in the top 57). Due to schedule constraints, I'll leave it to someone else to remove the links in the top 57. --A. B.(talk)

es, fr, de and en hasn't been cleaned up yet, the others are cleaned up. --Jorunn 10:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

This is the web site of a party. Why do you remove this link from the article dedicated to that party? 84.50.240.140 16:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It will not be possible to save any edits to the articles until the blacklisted link is removed. (The articles about the party seems to me to have been written by the same person/s who added all the links to the website of the party, and they might not be as unbiased as one would want.) --Jorunn 19:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Jorunn, Why isn't it possible, doesn't this seem to be trying to kill a fly with a cannon-type action?

==Was this an error?== (see below, comment bout bindependencia.net -)

Anyways, if not an error --as the person from Estonia commented above-- doesn't this procedure of eliminating this respected website from its own Party name seem extreme?

If an error, is it because of this:

As I was told in the alarm-notice, I had a look at the spam list and actually found a similar link to the one mentioned above -only with an initial b added to it - so: bindependencia.net Could you kindly do something not to get the above mentionned independencia.net-link mixed up with the bindependencia.net-link?

This domain was spammed to dozens of Wikipedias and to articles totally unrelated to anything to do with Puerto Rico. In the case of the links I removed, where the link was in an article on the actual political party, I stripped out the "http://" but left www.independencia.net for readers to see. They won't have a live link, but they can always paste the address into their browser to visit the site. Elsewhere, I deleted the links. I think Jorunn made a good call in asking this domain be blacklisted. In terms of cross-wiki spam, it was probably one of the twenty worst to be blacklisted here so far in 2007. --A. B.(talk) 21:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

If one looks at the Estonian article about the party one can see that the link was in both the infobox and in a link section. I removed the link section and stripped the link in the infobox to just www.independencia.net. I did not see the need for any web adress to be mentioned twice in that short article.

The reason I nominated your link to the spam blacklist was 200+ links to independencia.net all over Wikipedia, specifically those that was added to the articles about direct democracy yesterday, like this one in the Swahili Wikipedia.

I do not know the case of the bindependencia.net spam, but if it is worse than the independencia.net case they sure have kept themselves busy. --Jorunn 00:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no such bindependencia.net, \bindependencia\.net is the regex used to blacklist independencia.net. --Brownout(msg) 00:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be somthing very fishy here, User:Brownout, don't you think?

Why has the Puerto Rican Independence Party's Wikipedia page been persistently "cleansed" of even the www.independencia.net regardless of whether the link is stripped or not? Also, have you seen the vandalism attacks this Wiki article and its fraternal pages in other languages have consistently suffered?

Have you seen that apparently they are trying to add the Puerto Rican Independence Party's website (independencia.net) to various Wiki pages so it gets "blacklisted"?

Anyways, do you know why someone eliminated the website link from the Puerto Rican Independence Party's Wiki article if your objection is to the Puerto Rico links?

Anyways, regarding another issue, if someone added the links to the Puerto Rico Wiki (with whatever intention), isn't that completely valid. It is a government-sanctioned instrumentality and there are many other links to other Puerto Rico government instrumentalities in the English Wiki on Puerto Rico.

I really don't see this as Spam, do you? Isn't someone being unfair with that link?

No talk page discussion by the person adding all these links. No edit summary used. No engagement or attempts at consensus with other editors within each language community.

Numerous links added across many Wikipedias in a short period of time.

Link description was always in English or Spanish, not the language of the Wikipedia spammed.

No other content was added besides the links themselves.

No links were added to sites offering alternate viewpoints. Independencia.net does not offer alternate viewpoints.

In the smaller Wikipedias, sometimes one of these links might be one of perhaps just 50 or 100 total external links in the entire encyclopedia.

As with rival sites, independencia.net is a non-neutral, advocacy site. It's a very appropriate link for an article about the party itself. None of these are very "encyclopedic" for other articles. Should we add all of these links anyway? or just the links for the two big parties that usually win 95% of the vote?

I agree with BeautifulFeminine, there seems to be arguments pulled out of context in your arguments, A. B.

It strikes me that somebody who has the interest and time to explain to you why this has seemed so outrageous may go point by point to explain why your arguments don't necessarilly hold water if you scratch the veneer a little bit.

For example, you talked to her about the Socialist International page, but you forgot to put that in context, such as that the Puerto Rican Independence Party happens to be an integral part of the Socialist International, it's webpage seems to carry many articles about the Socialist International; also, the President of the Puerto Rican Independence Party happens to be the Honorary President of the Socialist International, so I would see many potential reasons for that link to be cited; it's all about context. Also, you could go to the extreme of arguing that some people added links without the ideal care for explaining the edit, etc. but that doesn't seem to have generated blacklisting in thousands of practically thousands of other countless links on Wikipedia.

Other important arguments that may be explained more thoroughly by this directly affected and/or with better understanding of this matter:

Most of the 50some Wikipedias you cite had a link to that party's website either from the Wiki about precisely that party or on the section of official websites associated to Puerto Rico, its government or its government's dependencies.

Links to other alternative points of view were apparently added just the same! Just look at the links to the Puerto Rico government site (allegedly occupied by two other parties).

You neglected to say that the Puerto Rican Independence Party seems to be --by all the inquires I performed-- the only political party with an English & Spanish language website, and the only one of the parties in Puerto Rico that are a member of the largest conglomeration of political parties in the world, that it seems to participate in international summits and meetings way above-and-beyond the other two principal parties; doesn't this seem to offer important context to the arguments you presented?

You say that the other parties obtain the 95% of the remaining vote but neglect to mention that theirt two at-larg legislators (I think Senator and Representative) are allegedly the ones who obtain by-far the most votes in all of Puerto Rico; doesn't this nuance your argument about vote percentages, even if that argument were to hold some water?

You don't mention that the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico's website (Spanish-exclusive website, that is, explains on its cover that it has been offline and in construction for an extended amount of time.

You don't mention that the independence party of Puerto Rico has various articles about direct democracy and its particular understanding of democratic self-determination that could explain links to the Direct Democracy Wiki-Entry.

The same thing seems to apply to slavery and the political ramifications of hip-hop and other urban music spin-offs that the Independence party in question seems to have been related to directly or indirectly; did you check what the links in question were offering as context for what you have offered as arguments?

You talk about percent of votes but neglect to remark that an encyclopedia isn't necessarily going to establish entries at the same order of who wins what percent of elections; has this measuring stick been used against other Wiki-link additions? You neglect to say that this party is apparently BY-DEFINITION more internationally-focused and projecting towards international contacts, precisely because it is an independence party; that might put into context your remarks about the statistics you provide about other political parties in Puerto Rico.

You explain that in cases where you found a link to the party, you merely removed the http:// suffix, but from what I have been told and I myself have been able to see, various of the Puerto Rico Independence Wiki's were completely stripped of any allusion to its website, including the English-Language wiki on the PIPR party, which until yesterday was stripped of the link stemming from the same page that expounds on that party, i.e. the Wiki entry on the PIPR.

How can you say that this may not be a case of unfair selectivity and out-of-context argumentation?

I sincerely hope to hear from you and receive your input because I think this matter has adversely affected other Wiki-Entries that have lost the enriching information-filled possibilities that are offered by people searching for more information and alternative points of view! At first glance, and after a more thorough review, I agree with the gentelmen and ladies that have written to questio whether this was a mistake or a case of assuming spam when it doesn't seem to fit the extreme-extent test (of a particular website link abuse) that should be taken into account before Blacklisting.

I think that a Reconsideration is in order. Again, on the basis of what has been discussed and the product of my own investigation (and I admit I am not an expert on Puerto Rico or the PIPR), I am awaiting your pondered response because this is important to all Wiki entries and future precedents on this wonderful free-information portal that is Wikipedia and the rest of the Wikimedia portals,

I agree, I think some people are taking very lightly what the terms "Spam" and "Vandalizing" mean. This seems to have been stretched to try to apply these terms to cases that are really not in conformity with the severity of what those concepts signify in Wikipedia.

If you add more than 200 links to your website crosswiki by mere sloppyness obviously something has to be done to stop you. --Jorunn 21:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait a minute A. B. (and Jorunn), out of the 71 or so examples of supposed SPAM related to this website (added as examples by A. B. above), a whopping 31 refer, either to Puerto Rico, or to ...guess what... the Wikipedia entry on the Puerto Rican Independence Party itself. Most of all of the rest of the links I've seen had a rational link to the subject of the respective Wiki entry.

If 31 of the above 71 cited are so clearly valid, why do you expect us to seriously consider the rest of your arguments.

Why are you jeapardizing the trustworthiness of this Blacklist by implementing trigger happy questionable calls without a consensus based decision making process? Turning the Blacklist into a forum accusable of Witch Hunting only serves to hurt Wikipedia's value, usefulness and reputation.

Please take the appropriate actions to rethink this and other questionable calls.

What I want to add as a follow-up comment to A. B. and Jorunn's fiasco is that it certainly seems to be a travesty and it is unacceptable under the definition and rules established for defining spam.

Nontheless, this is --after all-- only a "Proposed Blacklist", right?

So, I say, before piling on to demonstrate how this is one of the worse examples --IF NOT THE WORST-- of all the occasional editors' "jumping-of-the-guns", we should recognize that everyone is human and can make honest mistakes as they did with this independencia.net site.

That said, this is a golden opportunity to investigate who elects persons like Jorunn and A. B., who supervises and oversees that they follow the rules on the REAL AND TRUE definition of SPAMMING (i.e., extreme, out of control, etc.), and who sees to it that they don't overstep their boundaries as they clearly did here.

It's easy to point to an obvious mistake such as the one Jorunn and A. B. commited here, but what we can learn from Jorunn and A. B.'s mistake is what we should have in mind the importance of supervising the supervisors. It is quite possible they were overeager. Also some of their arguments display some ignorance and narrow-mindendness when it comes to explaining their logic and attempts at justifying their actions. Even though that's not excusable, it happens all the time and good people should have a chance at improving at what they do. It's a tough job they have to do and anybody can make a mistake as they have done so here. So, let's criticize them when they make a mistake, but let's not lose perspective that we need to use every step of the way to build a better, more user-friendly Wikipedia that's sticks to the rules and guidelines that can continue to make this a great and fun place to learn and work in.

Let this serve as a heads-up not only to A. B. and Jorunn but to everyone else out here that it's everyone of us' responsibility to learn from mistakes to improve Wikipedia day-by-day.

It's in our hands, let's help build the Wikipedia road one brick at a time; it's up to Jorunn, A. B. and any other responsible person to correct this mistake.

Could A. B., Jorunn or anyone else explain why, if this is a ***PROPOSED*** addition to the blacklist (as in many other blatant cases) they went ahead and took action before the appropriate discussion?

If it looks probable that a site will be blacklisted, it's good to try to clean up the links before' blacklisting. Otherwise, we end up with, in the case of independencia.net, hundreds of articles that are locked up from editing until the links are removed. So someone wanting to edit the Opium Wars article on the Chinese Wikipedia would have had to figure out the problem and fix it. Unfortunately, the spam filter's notice screen is not always helpful in telling editors what the problem is or how to fix it. For instance, I just did the same thing with another set of domains I listed 18 hours ago: Talk:Spam blacklist#bellazon.org spam.--A. B.(talk) 18:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Your arguments don't seem to make any sense, A. B.

What does this discussion serve in creating a consensus-based decision process if you discuss it as an afterthought?

Where is the consistency between trying to defend and uphold Wikipedia principles, policy and rules when you flaunt left and right showing how much disregard you have for these consensus based procedures?

People I am responsible for reporting Wiki En Wiki's (his original account) behaviour for a first time in the English Wikipedia, please note that he ignores all warnings given to him, actually he has created a significant number of sockpuppets to evade his blocks even after he was notified that he was confirmed as a sockpuppeteer, is there a way to blacklist this link on all the articles in the Wikis excluding the ones referering to the Puerto Rican Independence party? PS in case nobody noticed this already this name (WikiInWikiOut) that was used by a user above is one of the names Wiki En Wiki has used to evade blocks in the en. wiki.-Caribbean H.Q. 00:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

reser

Concise update on where this request is up to? Can I archive it? Cheers --Herbytalk thyme 07:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Given the long history of this abuser (see the link above), I strongly recommend blacklisting here even if these links don't presently show up on other Wikipedias besides en.wikipedia. --A. B.(talk) 15:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There are a few good faith links on en., but none are used as sources. I will remove those links if this request is approved. There are also 23 links on he. (Hebrew) and one on zh. (Chinese). I don't have the language skills to edit these Wikipedias (is that the plural for Wikipedia?). -- SiobhanHansa 19:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Could you please give us links of spam evidences on zhwiki and hewiki? Thanks! --Aphaia 16:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Aphaia - I didn't mean to imply that the links on the other wikis were spam, I don't know whether they were added in good faith or not. I can try to do some research tomorrow. I was simply trying to give info about the current impact of blacklisting the site. -- SiobhanHansa 03:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

OK - The zhwiki link is a good faith addition. The hewiki links appear to be the work of two users: Rotem300 contributions and David11 contributions, whose only edits to main space appear to be to add the link. (Please note this investigation was done without the benefit of being able to read Hebrew, though as you'll see, the edits look pretty obvious). -- SiobhanHansa 09:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I too found that the links was added on he.wikipedia by these two users, David11 and Rotem300, except one link that was added by IP 84.94.96.134, who has also added the link on en.wikipedia.

Thank you for your information, after hearing there is a good faith editing, I am inclining not to list this url for now. I rather recommend you to ask local admins to deal with them (enwiki & hewiki), since those websites are likely to be spammed massively. But regarding the info provided, I hesitate to surpress it globally. --Aphaia 04:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the language skills to post on hewiki - hopefully another poster here who does could follow up with them. Thanks. -- SiobhanHansa 10:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of my work on wikipedia and meta has involved spam-mitigation. SiobhanHansa's dilemma is why we have a meta blacklist. One simple action here fixes the problem. The alternative is to have SiobhanHansa track down a Hebrew speaker, then get him/her to communicate with a Hebrew admin, etc. In many cases, such efforts just aren't going to get made by someone in that chain.

Additionally, pushing blacklisting out to the individual projects highlights the fact that it's very hard to find out what other projects have been spammed. We have one fairly new tool at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~eagle/linksearch to search the largest Wikipedias. It misses almost 200 other Wikipedias + all >500 other Wikimedia projects. We have another tool with which to check an IP's cross-project edits at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~luxo/contributions/contributions.php but for reasons I don't understand, about half the time it doesn't work right (I don't know if it's a tool problem or a database problem). When we say something has only been spammed to a particular project, we really don't know if that's true or not. For instance, there are 1000s of external links on en.wikiquote; longtime spam-fighters from wikipedia will recognize some familiar domains. Until we have much better tools for tracking spam Wikimedia-wide, I think we need to keep using meta -- if a link is inappropriate and has been spammed uncontrollably on one project we should default to blacklisting it across all projects.

I think the local blacklists are best for cases where an otherwise appropriate link is spammed uncontrollably on one project but other projects still wish to use it. There was an Italian art site for instance that did this a while back (I don't remember the domain). It was encyclopedic, but the site owner's persistence in spamming it everywhere across one project became intolerable. It was blacklisted here, but then other projects started complaining. It would have been useful to swap it from the meta list to the local list in this case.

Getting back to biblewalks, can we reconsider and blacklist biblewalks at meta? If you look at he:שיחת משתמש:Rotem300, you'll see this spammer's been getting warnings on he.wikipedia as well using multiple accounts.[137][138][139][140]

If you look at the one zh.wikipedia link, it was imported wholesale along with a lot of other material from en.wikipedia.[141] This sort of x-wiki plagiarism is a great way to build an encyclopedia (en.wikipedia should do more of this) but it does have the side effect of propagating spam and I see this frequently when investigating x-wiki spam. Nobody at zh.wikipedia appears to have made a conscious decision to add this one particular link.

An issue I see here is "Is the site "wanted" by any of the projects?". If so global blacklisting would actually be harmful and local blacklisting would be better. That said if say 1 wiki wanted the links they could use the local whitelist to accomplish that? Cheers --Herbytalk thyme 10:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no indication these links were ever wanted on he.wikipedia. One was passively imported with a bunch of other en.wikipedia material into zh.wikipedia. There may be one or two good faith additions on en.wikipedia, but the consensus there is that this is an uncontrollable problem and needs blacklisting. I think this is a classic case of cross-wiki spam. --A. B.(talk) 15:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

bratislava-info.sk

The following discussion is closed.

Cross-wiki spam.

IP 195.113.15.69 is out adding the link and creates new articles where there isnt already a Bratislava article to add the link to. (The content of the articles is in English and copied directly from the bratislava-info.sk site.)

Gambling blog spammer

The following discussion is closed.

Hi all - my first time reporting something on the meta, so I am not exactly sure how the process works. At any rate, over the past month or so, there have been many spam edits to the English wikipedia advertising the gambling site usa-players-accepted.blogspot.com - the edits come from a wide range of IP addresses. Here is one such recent edit. Can we block these guys? ♣♦SmartGuy♥♠ 14:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. To go on the overall spam blacklist evidence of cross wiki spamming is usually required (not just one wiki). If there are issues with spam on en.wp then the local blacklist can be used? --Herbytalk thyme 15:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a local blacklist but I will check and see. ♣♦SmartGuy♥♠ 17:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There is one (on all media wikis I think) but getting anyone to do anything may be an issue. Of course if you find some cross wiki spam.... Let us know --Herbytalk thyme 18:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you let me know (off line if appropriate) what the issue with the OTRS ticket is? (of course you can put them on the list yourself now :-)) Cheers --Herbytalk thyme 07:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Done However, I think the original request should be more informative: not every meta sysop are on OTRS. And the request is concerned with only English Wikipedia, reviewing the OTRS ticket, I think it appropriate to restraint them globally. --Aphaia 05:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

simplelink.php5.sk

The following discussion is closed.

This appears to be a url redirector service. Several similar sites have been blacklisted in the past (even before evidence of spam use), such as TinyURL, xaddr.com, MinorUrl.com, etc. Tizio 16:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

leggievai.it

The following discussion is closed.

Please, add leggievai.it. This website has been adding from a user in about 60 pages. This is the situation at the moment, but I've just begun the deletion. The link is out of our external links policy. Thank you. --Tooby 17:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed removals

This section is for archiving proposals that a website be unlisted.

3x.ro

3x.ro is a free hosting provider from Romania. As such, it is the origin to some spam activity, but also to some great content. I consider that banning all the sites under the 3x.ro domain name is an excessive measure. If you ban the whole domain, we loose some great content, like treipuncte.3x.ro/webdocs/principal.html , which contains informations about the computers made in Romania before 1989. This site would be very useful to pages like ro:Felix_MC and, more generally, to all the pages listed here. Becuse of that, I propose banning only specific subdomains from 3x.ro--Strainu 18:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, I can't find the request which led to the banning. Could someone help me? Thanks.--Strainu 18:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Suite101.com

This website has many useful articles worth citing. Unfortunately its on the blacklist and I've seen many articles written in wikipedia using the articles published in this site from suite101. The reason being there is no mention of where the source came from is because this site is blocked. Just look at the Cambodian Cuisine page first paragraph and compare it to some of the lines in Cambodian Cuisine article in suite101 and you will see some relevancy.

Not done Due to lack of unsign, it is difficult to verify who appeals and also the legitimacy of such appeal. --Aphaia 17:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

www.belarussolidaritycampaign.co.uk

blocked for "not having any content", when it clearly does. This is abuse by an administrator. From the alexander Lukashenko article. It is certainly relevant and objective.

ultra-star.dl.am

I have seen, that on the german SingStar-Thread, the URL of ultra-star.dl.am is blocked. WHY? http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SingStar For all non-german-speaking people: There is a fanproject called UltraStar. This is a SingStar Clone and has a huge fan-base. The problem is, that it isn't soooo easy as SingStar. So there has to be some help for newbies. ultra-star.dl.am is the biggest and most competent Tech-Help Forum for UltraStar in GERMAN (It has ca 75% of all UltraStar-Users in it). So I think it has absolutely it's right to be in the URL-List. Sure there is some advertising power in having this link there. But that is NOT the reason why I have put it there. It is absolutely important to get a good community and tech-help for UltraStar. And ultra-star.dl.am is the best with that (in Germany). So please Unblock the site and add the Link again.. THX!

www.isbn-check.de

fisheaters.com/emberdays.html

I am trying to add the above URL to the Wiki entry "Ember Days" but am told that the site triggers the spam filter. This can't be right. Could this be remedied? Thank you. 66.235.22.204 20:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

You can ask your local sysop to whitelist the website instead. --Aphaia 21:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

zmesh.com

this site has no links on wikipedia and is not a spam site consider removing please. Thanks

Not done Due to lack of unsign, it is difficult to verify who appeals and also the legitimacy of such appeal. --Aphaia 17:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

bizorigin.com

Please unlist. This is a business blog that I would like to use as a reference in an article. Not sure why it is listed.

Not done now. Since the appeal is unsigned, the legitimacy of this appeal cannot be proved. Also the blog is not considered a legitimate source in the project in many cases. The interested users can however submit their appeal in any time. --Aphaia 08:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

superjoe.hopto.org

Not all *.hopto.org websites are bad. This one is my website and occasionally I want to add a reference in a wiki article to a page on my site. 68.167.224.139 21:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Not done personal website is anyway not recognized a good source which you can include into an article. Also you can ask your local sysop to whitelist the website. --Aphaia 17:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Can't Find Blacklink

This is a global list, you are better to ask your local admin to whitelist the website instead. --Aphaia 17:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

languedoc-france.info

I'd like to edit this page, but can't do so because of the blacklist. The link seems to be ok on first sight, so could you please remove it from the list (also see above]. Thank you. --132.195.10.109 10:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

If you remove the blacklisted link from the article the page can be edited. --Jorunn 11:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

tutorialspoint.com

I'm a webmaster of tutorialspoint.com. My site is purely related to free education and training. I have put very good computer tutorials online by putting my lot of effort. But due to some wrong elements this site had been put in blacklist. So my humble request is to remove this site from blacklist for the benefit of computer professionals specially for beginners.

Thank you very much for understanding.

Tutorialspoint, Webmaster

Not done crosswiki spammed website, harmed non English wikis in particular. See also Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/04/Removals: Not Done. You could ask a particular wiki sysop to whitelist your website, but it is solely on their discretion based on their community consensus. --Aphaia 16:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC

Wikislavia

The following discussion is closed.

ru volgota com - This 100,000-article Russian wiki was added to a spam list based on a request from a single user (User:Rombik) who complained about ~5 articles which he found offensive to wikipedia users. The site is open for editing for anyone, so any problem can be easily solved by appropriate revisions. No spam activity toward Wikipedia was attempted from this site. Rather, a member of Russian academy of education was insulted by User:Kalan (an administrator) who intruded into his personal page and removed a single reference to an article on volgota. The steward who added the site to the spam list is obviously poorly informed about this case. SA ru 00:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Strongly advise against removal. Zolotaryov is using his site for applying presure on ruwiki editors and for coordination of anti-Wikipedia activities, c.f. http://ru.volgota.com/index.php/User_talk:Smartass?oldid=244960#.D0.9A.D0.A1.D0.A0.D0.92. MaxSem 07:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

How can I apply presure on ruwiki users when I am not an admin there? How our discussions about violating of Wikipedia rules in ruwiki are relevant to this?--Yaroslav Zolotaryov 07:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I can show you what is anti-Wikipedia activity. When teenager Kalan abuses famous academician Khutorskoy and tell him to remove link to the site which this academician likes, Wikislavia, this is anti-Wikipedia activity. But our critics about you which can be found in talk pages of Wikislavia is not anti-Wikipedia activity, this is only anti-MaxSem activity. Yes, we support such activity because we believe that there are many violations of rules in ruwiki which you support. But there is no anti-Wikipedia activity here. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 11:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

For those who are interested in an English translation of the page pointed out by MaxSem, this is just a user talk page with some random discussion without any intend to apply "pressure to wikipedia editors". MaxSem is misleading you, and by the way you should inspect his election results very carefully. Several users from ru.wikipedia.org pointed out that many meatpuppets (users without contribution; allegedly created by User:Rombik) participated in his election. The statement that an external wiki project is "applying pressure" to Wikipedia is absolutely absurd. --SA ru 14:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep in the black list. Arguments per MaxSem. Mister Zolotaryov and his destructive web-projects very well-known in Russian Wikipedia. --Eraser 07:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

One of these destructive projects is Siberian Wikipedia, part of Wikipedia in general, and the other is Wikiskavia, this is destructive project with 100 000 articles and Russian Wikivercity with 3 faculties. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 07:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Eraser's arguments with the phraseology borrowed from Stalinist times do not make any sense. I am very curious what exactly he means by the phrase "destructive project"? What does this project destruct? I completely agree with Yaroslav Zolotaryov. There are indeed several ru.wikipedia.org administrators who act in destructive ways in their own project. User:Kalan is one of them. In ru.wikipedia.org it is forbidden to edit other users' pages unless there is a strong reason, but Kalan intruded in the Academician Khutorskoy's personal page, deleted some text and inserted new text. After Khutorskoy complained, he was insulted by Kalan and several other administrators with similar pattern of activity. If needed, we can present evidence of rule violations by Kalan and several other administrators from ru.wikipedia.org. SA ru 15:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cite: "Wikipedia is typically described as kind of a buffalos herd, users whose power is their knowledge" — VasilievVV 08:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:VasilievVV's claim is false. Wikislavia does not just copy pages from ruwiki. It contains materials from more than 10 wiki projects in Russian and much more than that (original texts, etc.) The source of each borrowed material is indicated for each article, and often there are several sources for one article. In adition, we have a strong team of our own authors and editors, so the statement that Wikislavia is just a copy of Wikipedia is completely false. We are going to become the largest and the most complete wiki-encyclopedia in Russian, and we will accomplish this goal because of inclusionist policy. The quote about buffalos is just a joke. Even if several articles can be considered "antiwikipedia materials" (whatever this means) this is not a reason to include it in the spam list. We do not produce any spam. We produce encyclopedic materials. SA ru 16:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Remove from black list. This site was banned; because of several political statements that are deemed offensive by the Russian government. But because we are not Russians; and we deserve a open and free encyclopaedia; i would suggest we look deeper at the reason why this site was banned because we need to supply people with a valid information source about the Russian (far) right movement, nationalism and what ever might be stirring ideologically in Russia. Who ever Zolataryov might be; he does not speak for the entire wikislavia site nor the right wing movement; but I checked this site and indeed; it has over 100,000 articles and it seems to be one of several right winged hubs on the internet. Similar to the place that the stormfront forum take in western Europe; but much less offensive.

Stormfronts foundation is much extremer then wikislavia’s; while wikislavia is right-winged and nationalist; they do not exhibit strong racist tendencies towards minorities; accepting different Slavic, Asiatic and Turkic groups within there wiki.

Spam: The amount of times this site was placed on a page it did not belong too; is negligible.

There will always be people who spam by using a website. But we must disconnect these people with the actual site; which is worthy of study; see Size and Importance. --Micha1712

It was no spam - this is completely invented, they can not provide any diffs about this. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 09:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It would be beneficial to find people who are not Russian; but who can read Russian; to give there opinion on the content of the site. I don't want this to turn into a culture war between different russian factions.--Micha1712

I agree with MaxSem. Browsing the site, I noticed that 100 000 consists of three types of articles: attacks on particular users, as well as on broad groups of them (that were continuously linked from different talkpages, but links are being removed now), some articles that were removed (or were added and deleted) in ruwiki, sometimes original researches and ruwiki dump that is being imported (and, by the way, it is attributed improperly and therefore violates GFDL). I don't know why do these users call this the rules' violation. FYI, there are open arbitration cases against Zolotaryov and Smartass (SA_ru there).
Note: "The site is open for editing for anyone" is a lie, because I've been blocked without any explainations just in some minutes after my account has been created, see http://ru.volgota.com/index.php/Special:Log/block?page=user:Kalan&uselang=en and related pages. — Kalan? 08:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Please do not lie, you was blocked after your own consent about this. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 09:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the first message posted on my talkpage and at it's author. — Kalan? 10:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Because you have written in your user page a personal attack on our group of users, I asked you do you want to be blocked or not. You say that you are agree with the blocking, so we did according to your wishes. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 10:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Strong oppose against removal of volgota from spamlist. The lion's part of volgota's articles are copied from Wikipedia; other articles are: 1) articles of Zolotaryov and Smartass that have been deleted in Russian Wikipedia as POV or Original Research and 2) attack-pages. If this site will be removed, you may be sure, that in the next day Zolotaryov and Smartass will span with links to volgota in all possible places. Ingwar JR 08:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

But why would you ban this site? Because they banned you and take text from ruwiki? That's not valid reason.--Micha1712

They advertise the site on ruwiki's talkpages, and they especially strongly link to the pages that are considered offensive. Taking text from ruwiki is a problem, but not a reason for blacklisting. — Kalan? 09:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Strong oppose against removal of volgota from spamlist per MaxSem and Ingwar.--Soularis 16:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually all this stuff about "personal attacks" are not only doubtful, but irrelevant to discussion, because policy says: "The spam blacklist exists primarily to control widespread spamming of Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is intended as a last resort for spam which spreads across multiple projects, and which is pursued by multiple individuals or IP addresses." But it was not any widespread spamming, I see no sufficient diffs - maybe 30 or 50. Because this is another wiki-project, our users mention it in discussions, but this is not spam. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 10:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

So why the spam-list is used by group of ruwiki users for political censorships and abusing of Russian Academics instead of it's main goal - to prevent spam? --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 10:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Kalan is the one who intruded into the page of that Russian Academician. Kalan is banned from editing Wikislavia for making a declaration that he registered "to make fun of the project". He was also banned for trolling activity on some other Russian wiki sites. SA ru 14:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is a translation of the Academician's complaint against Kalan's actions (Russian text is here):

Are you afraid of the truth?

You removed from [my personal page] a reference to "Suppression of dissidents in Russian-language Wiki" with a remark rm spam. Please present evidence that this reference is a spam. --Хуторской 12:41, 13 августа 2007 (UTC)

Site volgota.com was entered to the spam list. It is our policy that refrences to such sites are removed independent of their content, so that they never come back. — Kalan? 12:49, 13 августа 2007 (UTC)

Calm down, above I gave you a reference to the spam list whose history shows, that volgota.com was included by a steward from Meta. stassats 14:59, 13 августа 2007 (UTC)

We all know about the spamlist, but who introduced the policy that this can be removed from users' personal pages? Please give me an exact refrence to the rules. --YaroslavZolotaryov 19:39, 13 августа 2007 (UTC)

Of course the policy was not adopted by anyone. The rules for personal pages and discussion pages are very different from the rules for articles. And the steward entered Wikislavia to the spam list on Rombik's request. Neither Rombik nor the steward who does not understand a word in Russian represent this community. Smartass 20:40, 13 августа 2007 (UTC) ( Smartass was immediately blocked for making this comment by ru:User:Torin) SA ru 16:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should write a collective letter to Meta from all interested users regarding the sites Traditio and Volgota? I think many users will sign. As far as I know my friends among Enlish-language users of Wikipedia, if they are explained adequately some situation, they would normally an adequately solve it, perhaps there is lack of information on Meta about Traditio and Volgota. --YaroslavZolotaryov 20:45, 13 августа 2007 (UTC)

Please move all the discussion irrelevant to my person to some other place. — Kalan? 06:24, 14 августа 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, you did not notice that several questions were directed personally to you? O am repeating one more time: Who adopted the poilicy, when? Provide exact references to rules or decisions. Otherwise your action is a voluntarism.--Хуторской 06:30, 14 августа 2007 (UTC)

Answeres to the questions that have something to do with me can be clarified by m:User:A. B., who constantly runs from wikipedia to wikipedia and cleans spam-references, he would know better. — Kalan? 06:42, 14 августа 2007 (UTC)

Changes on my personal page were made by you (you removed the reference and added new words). I am asking what grounds did YOU have to do that? If you do not provide explanations I will conclude that you are engaged in voluntarism and violated Wikipedia rules. --Хуторской 09:10, 14 августа 2007 (UTC)

You are free to make this conclusion given you are so eager to think this way. I could not care less. Kalan? 09:14, 14 августа 2007 (UTC)

You did not provide any arguments, and you statement is completely false. I quote: "Also, some users constantly spam links to Wikislavia on the pages of Russian Wikipedia trying to raise their search rankings." So, where is the evidence that some users "constantly spam links to Wikislavia on the pages of Russian Wikipedia"? Please provide references, and if you cannot please acknowledge that you intentionally tried to mislead the community. SA ru 22:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

MaxSem statement is false. He pointed to a user talk page that does not not (and cannot) "apply pressure to Wikipedia users" whatsoever. SA ru 22:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep blacklisted. Look at an article, link to which is placed on the main page of the project:

ru.volgota.com/index.php/Хуторской_и_хунвэйбины

In this article admins of ruwiki are called "хунвэйбины", which means Red Guards which were destroying cultural heritage of China. I'll also try to translate subscriptions of the pictures in this article: "Современное положение дел в википедии" - modern situation in wikipedia (under the picture of man having sex with a male goat!), "Молодой администратор с журналом блокировок в руках" - young admin with a block log in hands (under the pic of Cultural Revolution in China), "Администраторы Википедии не далеко ушли от средневековых инквизиторов, сжигавших еретические книги" - admins of Wikipedia haven't gone far from Middle Ages inqusitors who burned heretical books, "Два удалиста просматривают статьи, выбирая, что бы выставить на удаление" - two deletists look over articles choosing what to nominate for deletion (under the picture of two rams!) In other article they has a list of 'some most impertinent admins' ("некоторые наиболее наглые админы"). I suppose that's enough to understand what is this project's treatment of Wikipedia. AndyVolykhov 20:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC) P.S. This project also copies materials from Wikipedia without any information about authors, for example, this is my article without any mentioning of my name in history, so it was stolen by this project: ru.volgota.com/index.php/Измайловская_(станция_метро) AndyVolykhov 20:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sad to say, but the articles picked by User:AndyVolykhov accurately reflect current situation in ru.wikipedia.org. None of the articles were "stolen from the project". They were copied following GNU FDL. All the sources are indicated at the bottom of article pages. User:AndyVolykhov obviously simply does not understand how GNU FDL works. SA ru 22:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I've just added the article to the category "Статьи с существенным участием AndyVolykhov" so that you could feel better. Please feel free to add other article with your participation or even put your name in the article's body so that the track of your authorship cannot be lost. Our policy is actually much more favorable to the authors compared to Wikipedia. We allow the authors to include their names in the articles. SA ru 22:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You are lying. No copied article has any links, neither to Wikipedia nor to its authors. About 100 000 articles are stolen, among them there are some hundreds with my major contributions. And that's not critics, that's simply dirt. AndyVolykhov 10:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You are the liar, not me. All the articles copied from elsewhere have a template that puts them in Category "This article contains materials from the article with the same name from a GNU FDL-license resourse URL". You can read this legend at the bottom of the page, and the template is inside the article's body, so it will not be lost if the article is copied. The category itself has a description of the web resource. We are very careful about following GNU FDL unlike ru.wikepedia.org whose Arbitration Committee decided that it is sufficient to just to mention the source in the editing history. That's not our way. We are very careful about tracking the sources, and in the future we will give credit to all authors, including you. And please do not lie any more. These facts are easily verifiable. I would provide some links that show how we label sources, but since you've put our project in your "black list" no links, sorry. Visit the project and see for yourself. SA ru 20:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

GFDL demands listing of document's authors and its source, otherwise the document is stolen. Show me these lists of authors. AndyVolykhov 07:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

And where is the rule that all the sites which have critics on specific language department of Wikipdedia should be blacklisted? If such a rule will be established - and admins of Russian wikipedia just want to establish such a rule, as we can see from this discussion - the reputaion of Wikipedia as free encyclopedia will be damaged. If they do such things in Meta, you can image what do they do in their own Wikipedia. So just this words of ruwiki administators shows that our jokes about Red Guards were true. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 00:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It is well known that administrators of ru.wikipedia.org have violated Wikipedia policies on multiple occasions (if anyone is interested this is very easy to illustrate). That's Wikipedia's problem. We just wrote a couple of humoristic articles about these fellows. SA ru 22:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

With regards to the stormfront site, on en.wikipedia, stormfront links do not appear to have been spammed; most or all of the article links were added by a variety of editors. Typically, a stormfront link in an article is to a stormfront quote by the person that's the subject of the article. Regardless of whether the site is offensive, this sort of linking is permitted (see the External Links Guideline).

There are more stormfront links on various project and talk pages but I only looked at page histories for actual articles.

If there are inappropriate stormfront links on en.wikipedia, they should be removed, regardless of the relative merits of wikislavia.

Finally, I'll note that I don't think stormfront has been used as a site to harass Wikipedia editors.--A. B.(talk) 03:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

If you really care about fighting the harassment of Wikipedia editors (and this is an important topic), we can talk about this seriously. But first of all I would like you to read the discussion between Kalan and Khutorskoy quoted above. Don't you see that Kalan, an administrator, is harassing a regular user? If you do, we can continue this discussion. SA ru 22:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep blacklisted - Zolotaryov and Smartass use the site to distribute their mistifications about ruwiki and its users. In fact it contains very small original content - most of (non-offensive) content was imported from ruwiki and other wikies and open sources, so itself it is just a mess of unsorted stuff. I think there is totally nothing useful for wikipedia there, so we don't need to reference their site in articles. MaxiMaxiMax 14:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

We already have 130,000 articles. We have already surpassed Wikiznanie and soon we will beat you. By the way, you statement is illogical. On the one hand you claim that Wikislavia is just a copy of Wikipedia. On the other, you call it a "mess of unsorted stuff". So, your project is a mess of unsorted stuff? Is that what you mean? SA ru 17:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Strongly keep in list for both Wikislavia and Traditio - for these are but ugly scavengers and vermin that feed on filth, rubbish and refuse discarded or forcibly removed from RuWP for violating the fundamental rules of WP. To hide this and to be considered a normal Wiki project like many others, the "founding fathers" dilute the poisonous filth with normal materials borrowed from RuWP - and with some articles on neutral subjects prepared by the few authors who have accounts on both Wikislavia or Traditio - and RuWP. Being blacklisted and shunned on RuWP for refusing to accept the universal rules of conduct, these people only last spring tried using RuWP for active advertising of their own marginal resource - what they did is they smuggled their "neutral" articles in, posted links to Wikislavia and Traditio and fought hard to keep them in place - but were fought down by the community. This attempt at having their infamous resources de-blacklisted is actually targeting RuWP as a neutral and positive source of comprehensive information, because we know only too well that, if successful (which I doubt, though), they are going to attack RuWP with renewed ardor and use RuWP as an advertising venue for the filth they are trying to spread among Russian-speaking public. I therefore call upon all reasonable people - please do not let it happen. Wulfson 14:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Wulfson, That's a truly remarkable piece of rhetorics. Could you please translate it into Russian, so that we could post it in Wikislavia? SA ru 17:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, SmartAss - так Вас теперь называть? It's good to know my effort was not wasted on you - BTW, do you hope to lead a promotional campaign for the Siberian hate language? Is it you who does the English translation for your current colleague - or can he do it by himself? I see your career is truly on the rise. Wulfson 18:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wulfson, hello again. Does it really matter how you waste your efforts? They will be wasted anyway unless you stop conforming. I wish I were an expert in Siberia, but I am not. On the other hand, you as a Siberian can contribute. You are welcome to participate. Wikislavia is a Russian-language project that covers a wide range of topics. There is no censorship. We may translate some pages in English based on their popularity. The most popular will be translated first. Join us! We need superb editors like you, and we can use your rhetoric skills when it comes to defending the project from smear campaigns. SA ru 19:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would advise you to try and enlist more Academicians on your staff, instead. In case you forget, we have lots of Academies here in Russia, which would literally do anything to get this opportunity. All you need is a well-posted ad, and the academic community will lie grovelling at your feet. As for me, I feel perfectly comfortable among people who are not only SMART but DECENT, too. Wulfson 03:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

In fact, it does not matter for us where you insert your text. If you write a good article it will be copied into Wikislavia for further editing. You and other members of your team are missing one major point: there is no ownership over GNU materials. So, the control that you maintain over Wikipedia materials is an illusion. You do not really have power that you appear to perceive. You may be arrogant as you currently are, funny, knowledgeable or whatever -- the bottom line is that we will monitor Wikipedia's content and take good materials. As far as academicians or whoever would like to join our project, we will just go with the flow. If there is interest in certain topics, theories, etc., let it be. We will not apply censorship to encyclopedic content, and we have lots of disk space. We have pretty good editors too. So, smart is the key point here. SA ru 05:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, your resource is no better for me than any other RuWP clones, and you are selling advertising space in the same way, so you can surely use our work for free, just like anyone else, and I don't care about it, for as long as you don't distort or misrepresent my words. If you do, I don't want to have anything to do with it. I do this work for the pure fun of it. I don't think, however, that anyone here would like to use materials authored by your staff - unless you smuggle them in yourselves, like you did before, and demand recognition. You are not going to get it, though. It's doomed to be a one-way road, so relax, and keep riding. Wulfson 09:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

You can check the translation of your initial statement in this discussion which we've put in our new article so that it is not misrepresented. We do not intentionally represent anybody's actions or statements. Of course it is a one-way road. Very soon we will have much more articles than ru.wikipedia.org. SA ru 19:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Users like you is exactly what we need to beat Wikipedia. Good luck in your activities on censoring Internet content! SA ru 17:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think when we will have 2-3 times more articles than ruwiki has, journalists will be interested in big headers like RUSSIAN WIKIPEDIA BLACKLISTED IT'S MAIN COMPETITOR AFTER 9 MENTIONS IN TALK PAGES. They have made a Soviet Kingdom there, but they do not inderstand that there is a big world out of borders of their despotic kingdom, and this world will support freedom and will not support censorship. It is clear that they fear us if they run to spamfilter protection from us. So we are stronger even now and we develop. Actually I like wikipedia and I have slight regret when I see how this ruwiki admins continuously destroy it's reputaion in Russia - in Siberian case, when they voted to close the wiki which did no harm to them, and in this Wikislavia case as well, when they want to add to spam list their main competitor. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 01:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is already covered in a Wikislavia article. Check it out. It has a comparison of the present rhetorics with Russian communist newspaper articles from 1937-1938. The phraseology is almost identical. We will continue covering all notable events in Wikipedia. SA ru 05:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you referring to this smear campaign? I agree with you. This is a very good organized trolling that violates basic principles of Wikipedia. This is exactly why the time has come for the projects that are really free from censorship. SA ru 22:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep in blacklist per Maximaximax, MaxSem, Wulfson and many others. Rombik 20:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

According to Spam blacklist/About, this site was not supposed to be added into Spam blacklist. On the other hand, there is no reason to remove it now. It is a shameless copy of ru.wp (including user pages), it does contain vindictive personal attacks, and everything else mentioned above. It's simply not worth this discussion ∴ Alex Smotrov 21:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Following your logic, if somebody was put in prison in violation of a law, there is no reason to get him out of the prison once he is there. Great argument! SA ru 22:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

To address your concern: analogy that I actually had in mind was more like " — hey, how did this IP ended up in open_proxy_list? I checked and it's actually a zombie PC. — well, just leave it there, doesn't relly matter, we're blocking it anyway" ∴ Alex Smotrov 00:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep in blacklist. The Wulfson's description of the situation is correct, even though a bit emotional. Besides, Traditio, at least, was explicitely used to recruit meatpuppets for Wikipedia admninistrators' elections (a case was submitted to the arbitration committee of the RuWP). On the one hand, I was among the members of the arbitration committee who resolved that, for Traditio is not within our jurisdiction, we should (and can) not control what is going on there. On the other hand, I think that both projects should be kept where they are, in the spam blacklist. The main promotors of the removal of Wikislavia from the blacklist are well known for their destructive activities in Russian Wikipedia and committed numerous violations of the rules of the project (see the Russian wikipedia arbitration committee archives). No wonder, they are trying to restore their cracked outpost. Alexei Kouprianov 22:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all, this project is called "Wikislavia", not "Traditio". If you have something to say about Traditio, please do this in the appropriate discussion. Repeating the name of a different project confuses the readers. Hopefully this is not your intent. Second, the Arbitration Committee that you sat on was absolutely the worst in www.ru.wikipedia.org history. You have nothing to be proud of. You violated Wikipedia policies practically in every decision that you made. And your statement that "the main promotors of the removal of Wikislavia from the blacklist are well known for their destructive activities in Russian Wikipedia" is a groundless insult. I conducted a couple of violations like using sockpuppets during blocking long ago and losing my temper a few times, but this hardly counts as "destructive activities". The same with Zolotarev. So, you better apologize for this lie. The real violators are ruwiki administrators (for example the fellow who signed below) who disrespect the policies. To give you an example, one user (ru:User:Serebr) simply documented admin violations recognized by the Arbitration Committee. For doing so he was blocked, and his record deleted. The same is going on here. You are trying to apply censorship to any criticism toward ruwiki admins. SA ru 22:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence to support this? Also, what connection, if any, do these sites have to Trafficpullz(permanent link)?

I don't have time to track this down (I'm traveling), but I set up a page of spam link tools for these domains at a user subpage at en:User:A. B./Sandbox14(permanent link) others can use to check these out. In particular the "domain tools" links may be useful. From a 30-second spotcheck, it seems like some of these domains share similar Metadata tags. --A. B.(talk) 18:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Are there any specific articles that would benefit from linking to these pages? (whose design is well-suited to improve search engine rankings, by the way...) Regardless of who spammed these sites, the purpose of the blacklist is to protect Wikipedia from further spam, not to provide a "fair" battleground for you and your competitors.

cais-soas.com

No idea what the 'Red' link was about, it wasn't something I wrote & it made no sense so I've removed it. The discussion I had linked above has since been archived to here. It says basically what Andre summarizes below. --Versageek 07:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

What? I don't understand 1) what you mean and 2) Why that site is blocked ... Flammifer 07:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand (1) either, but I can help you regarding (2): The site was used much as a source by one person, who might have been the site owner, but was found to be very rich in copyright violations and a bit of fringe material. It was therefore declared unusable as a source. In most cases, links to cais-soas.com should be replaced by links to http://www.iranica.com. If you specify the exact page you want to link to, we could make a search for a better link instead or ask a page-specific whitelisting. - Andre Engels 07:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the info; I wanted to put www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Architecture/ayvan_e_khosrow.htm in the external links for the Taq-i Kishra article], because it has loads of information. Since that page is indeed taken from the encyclopedia iranica, what should I do? Not use it a sa source? Directly reference Iranica? I found Iranica's version of the page, but it uses a weird character encoding system (fonts instead of unicode, it seems?), and has no pictures ... Flammifer 08:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

If the "site was used much as a source by one person.." why is it blacklisted here and not in the specific project? --DaB. 21:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I asked a jawiki sysop who is eventually Arabic politics researcher. He said the website is basically copy of the Iranica, so the latter should be quoted as the original source, and it doesn't make a sense to cite from this website. while the best way of citing is citation from the printed version, the original ones. I'm therefore hesitant to whitelist it. --Aphaia 16:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

cais - wrong spam alert

Hi, I'm mainly working in the German wikipedia in the field of Iranian Culture. Whenever I come across sites with a link to a very honorable and internationally acknowledged Centre of Ancient Iranian Studies, namely www.cais-soas.com, the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, I get a spam-blacklist alarm - and thus am not able to save my changes (e.g. the article on Bishapur or Gundishapur in the German Wikipedia). As I was told in the alarm-notice, I had a look at the spam list and actually found a similar link to the one mentioned above - only with an initial b added to it - so: www.bcais-soas.com. Could you kindly do something not to get the above mentionned cais-link mixed up with the bcais-link. Hope, it's not too confusing ;o) ... with kind regards J Safa 19:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the "b" is part of the regexp of the spam listing so your appeal is relevant to the section now included. Thanks --Herbytalk thyme 11:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

myfendi.com

There were 3 or 4 links included by the usual socks (the 110 more deep crosswiki spam domains case), but the domain apparently changed owners since then. It's currently registered to the 'real' Fendi corporation and a simple redirect to fendi.com. No longer an immediate spam danger. Femto 15:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Plausible. Can you show any evidence of the change of owner in the domain registries? I agree it looks legit now, I just want to be sure we're not being had. Thanks, JzG 21:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Current whois lists Adele Fendi, 00189 Roma, Italy, same physical location of the en:Fendi company. (The earlier spamsites are all registered to someone called Lim, based around New York, Philadelphia, and the Philippines) Femto 16:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

castellabate.forumcommunity.net

The following discussion is closed.

This website has been banned because of associated spam. It's not spam, but it's a useful Forum on-line. The site is a non-profit site dedicated to inform peoples. I propose that it be removed from the list.

This site is not blacklisted at Meta level - local blacklist maybe - wrong! It is the "forumcommunity" bit that is blacklisted. As such the best approach will be to seek local whitelisting on the Wiki that the link is appropriate too - thanks --Herbytalk thyme 15:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

plasmatics.com

The following discussion is closed.

I'm working on the Plasmatics article, and I need to list the official web site for references. For some reason, it's blacklisted. ---69.249.228.69 03:39, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm still waiting on this one, and can someone PLEASE help me on this? --69.249.228.69 02:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather suggest you to ask your local admin to whitelist it. --Aphaia 16:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure how to do that. --69.249.228.69 14:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

reset

You need to ask someone who is listed as an admin on your local wiki to edit the local whitelist to put this domain in (if the community are ok with that). Cheers --Herbytalk thyme 07:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

cavalierhealth.org

The following discussion is closed.

This website had long been linked to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalier_king_charles_spaniel The site is a non-profit site dedicated to informing breed owners, buyers, and breeders about the severe genetic health problems of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. It discusses the genetic disorders, their symptoms, how they are diagnosed, how they are treated, what breeders can to do try to avoid passing them on to future generations, references to veterinary journal articles about the disorders, plus lists of veterinary cardiologists and neurologists who treat some of these disorders, and a list of upcoming health clinics sponsored by breed clubs and kennel clubs where owners can have their dogs examined for these problems. It has been an active site for several years, and it is the third most visited Cavalier King Charles Spaniel website in the United States. ----CavalierHealth

According to the request on Talk:Spam blacklist/Archives/2007/08, this link was posted by anons to not only English Wikipedia but other language Wikipedias. Third most visited website in a certain theme in the United States sounds no good reason to post it to German, Norwegen or Swedish websites in my humble opinion and I feel it reasonable people think it spamming. --Aphaia 15:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

On 21 July IP 72.40.157.97 added the link to all Wikipedia articles there were about Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, except the English article where the links already was (there was already a link to the website in some of the other articles too, after the cross-wiki link adding trip of 72.40.157.97 on July 21. there were two links to the website in each of the Wikipedia articles. There was also a brand new article in Dutch Wikipedia, containing nothing but those two links. I saw this and reverted it, where it hadn't already been done. The next day the same IP readded the links in the articles in fr, no and pt Wikipedia. Then I nominated the link for blacklisting.

The URLs cavalierhealth.com and cavalierhealt.net goes to the same website, and the link to cavalierhealth.com was added to the English Wikipedia article about Cavalier King Charles Spaniel on 9 August, by the same IP who added the cavalierhealth.org links crosswiki on 21 July. --Jorunn 20:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There was no intention to do any spamming. The website was listed on the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel pages of Wikipedias in several languages because it contains useful information about the breed, and many viewers of those sites also read English. Breed club websites in non-English speaking countries specifically link to this site. See, e.g., http://www.swedenckcs.se/ There is no profit motive in posting this site -- which is about the health of the breed -- to webpages devoted to that breed. So, spamming is not the motive. The site is non-profit, has no advertisements, and provides a valuable service to Cavalier owners throughout the world. --CavalierHealth 17:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Declined However may I say by way of explanation that this is not a reflection on your site but concerns the Wikimedia community's wishes. When a link is continually added and equally continually removed by a variety of users on different Wikis it seems to me that they are saying that they do not want the link. If there are enough instances & wikis the site is then blacklisted. I'm afraid that your wish to have it removed from the list seems contrary to the wishes of a number of users -Herbytalk thyme 11:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

reisbegeleider.com

The following discussion is closed.

I somehow failed to notice I had posted to a closed discussion about this, so moving here. This is a large, ad-free (except on the homepage which, as far as I can tell, is never linked) archive of wildlife photography. How can it possibly be spam to link to a site full of photos of animals, from articles on animals? And why should it be so disturbing that this isn't uncommon? It's a useful link everywhere it's still present. Could someone please explain how any of these links meets any of the criteria at en:WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided or en:WP:LINKSPAM? Or is there evidence I'm not seeing that the links were placed by a bot? (Even if true, it's still a useful site.) Csernica 02:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

As you have found the archive of the request you will see that links existed to the site on 28 wikis. This quantity in itself suggests that someone is interested in promoting the site and is using Foundation wikis to do so. When a number of users across wikis remove such links and they are repeatedly added back that shows a lack of respect for the Wiki community concerned as well as ignoring the wishes of that community. In the end there remains little choice than to blacklist the site. It matters not how the links were placed and although the use of bots to place links is common I will always block such bots on sight --Herbytalk thyme 08:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In passing I find the use of scripting by "stealth.nl" of some interest? If you wish your pictures to have a wider exposure you could always consider freely licensing them to Commons which would allow them to be used across Foundation projects --Herbytalk thyme 09:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Um... They're not my pictures. I hadn't even taken note of the link until someone editing an article I watch hit the block, and then went and deleted the entire External links section instead of just the blacklisted link [148]. I naturally had a look at it before cutting it [149]. It seemed like a relatively useful site as such things go, and I couldn't see any immediate reason for it being listed. So the method of placing links is what makes it spam regardless of a site's actual utility? Csernica 13:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

With apologies - most of the appeals come from folk involved with the sites blacklisted! (equally you won't be able to answer the "why scripting from "stealth.nl"!). For me and I guess most of the folk involved with dealing with excessive external linkage it will be a combination of factors. The actual site content (not an issues in this case I would say), the quantity of links, the continual placement despite removal/warnings and frequently the creation of accounts that merely place links.

From a Foundation viewpoint freely licensed material that can be used directly on pages will always be preferable to links. Equally imagine the situation where all websites worldwide with any relevance to the article in question suggest that, because a link exists, their's must also be there. It would cease to be any form of encyclopedia and become merely a collection of links (which anyone can find via search engines anyway). Regards --Herbytalk thyme 13:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem. As I said, I wasn't terribly upset; it was just something of a surprise. (That Perseus Digital Library listing, on the other hand....) Csernica 01:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Declined then but thanks for the interest --Herbytalk thyme 08:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll need to look at why "freewebpage" was put on the list --Herbytalk thyme 14:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I need to list this official web site for references, and for some reasons, it's blacklisted. Can you PLEASE help me on this? 124.13.29.56 14:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

We're looking to see why it was blacklisted in the first list. Be patient, and we'll help you as soon as we can :-) Thunderhead 14:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Also could you tell us exactly why it is needed? It does have commercial links in it and I could not see anything that suggested it would be needed by foundation wikis. --Herbytalk thyme 14:52, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I also find no value, and your request cannot be done without removing all "freewebpage.org". You are better to request a particular subdomain on a particular wiki, though I cannot and won't assure you that they will be persuaded. --Aphaia 15:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

This website is dedicated to informing the local community and visitors about the school. This is not a spam site. I don't feel this is a fair reason to ban the site, given that many members would like to be able to read the wikipedia page to keep in touch and updated about the school.124.13.110.79 15:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that if every local school worldwide wanted to add their weblinks there would be no Wikipedia merely a collections of links. You could ask the wiki you want it on to put your site on the local whilelist. As far as Meta is concerned Declined --Herbytalk thyme 15:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Can I know how to put the site on local whilelist? 124.13.110.79 15:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You need to ask an administrator on the wiki you wish to use the link on to do it --Herbytalk thyme 15:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Troubleshooting and problems

This section is for comments related to problems with the blacklist (such as incorrect syntax or entries not being blocked), or problems saving a page because of a blacklisted link. This is not the section to request that an entry be unlisted (see Proposed removals above).

Blacklist Bug?

S

Apparently there is a blacklist entry forbidding the URL http://www DOT S (the single letter S)! This will surely cause a lot of legitimate page edits to fail, because a lot of articles legitimately reference URL's that begin with the letter S. 67.182.244.157 14:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. This is already causing problems. Does anyone know why this should be happening? It must be a recent change. At the moment, perfectly good links are having to be removed ([151], [152]). Whatever the cause, this must be solved now. --Stemonitis 14:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I have no problem. You must speak with your local admin. It is supposed to be blacklisted locally, not on this list. --Aphaia 14:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"You must speak with your local admin." I am a "local admin" on de.wp. We also have this problem. (test http://www.spd.de ) We assume that it is a global problem, not a local. In our local spam blacklist there is no entry that can cause this problem. --BLueFiSH✉ 15:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

it seems, that the problem is solved. i can now save pages with www.spd.de. --User:BLueFiSH.as 15:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It works now for me too. Thanks for fixing it! Royalbroil 14:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

cais-soas.com

discussion moved to request for removal --Aphaia 10:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

workforall

I understand why this site was blacklisted and am not requesting to have it lifted as this link was littered throughout Wikipedia. However, I do actually have a legit use for it as a reference but can not add it. I was trying to undo this change. Morphh 19:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with News Link URLs Showing Invalid in Wiki

Hi, I am working on a page involving a current news event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_homestead_exemption When I use actual URLs, they work fine, until I do a preview of the page and attempt to test the URL. At that point, I am given a failure on most of the news URLs. When I change the news links to tinyurls, which I did not know was not allowed until I finally did a "save page," I discovered that the tinyurls allowed the news links to be accessed successfully through Wiki.

I can write the section without any citations, but I have 14 citations. All but one URL site requires tinyurl to work. Many of the External Links I added also would not connect to the News sites (online newspapers, etc.) without tinyurl. Should I write it without citations, or how would you like me to proceed? Should I request local whitelisting of that specific page? Thank you.72.40.99.152 11:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

tinyurls have been abused in the past as a means of bypassing the blacklist, so that's why all URL shortener/redirect sites of that sort are blacklisted as we find them. If you go to the tinyurl address you're interested in, you should be able to determine the "real" web address for that site. Just use that "real" address instead of the tinyurl link. --A. B.(talk) 13:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello, and thank you.

Last night, the page worked fine with tinyurls, but would not work with regular URLs.

I was the one who created the tinyurls from the original URLs, because the original URLs were not responding properly once they were entered into the wiki page.

Currently, the original URLs are working properly. Last night this was not the case. If I have any more problems with original URLs returning 404s -- and tinyurls working properly as substitutes in preview mode -- I will let you know. 72.40.99.152 [on wikipedia] 72.40.99.152 [on meta.wikimedia.org] 22:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

700 URL redirection links to clean up

As a matter of policy, domains such as tinyurl.com are routinely blacklisted since they not only can be used innocently as URL shorteners but also as a means of bypassing our spam blacklist. I keep the en:URL redirection article on my watchlist since someone adds another site to the external links section every week or two that I list for blacklisting. These additions are not necessarily spam -- some folks post them just to be helpful.

Today we had an editor add several links that, when linksearched across 57 Wikipedias, present major cleanup challenges:[153]1. http://fd.tc

Mindless blacklisting will create chaos across hundreds of gridlocked articles so the links need to be cleaned up for each domain before blacklisting. Mindless link deletion in turn will delete many useful links and references since most probably were added in good faith by editors using these domains for short URLs. The right thing to do is to find and substitute the actual site link for the redirect URL.

I have also deleted all co.nr links on the 200 smallest Wikipedias (those not listed above) Last updated: --A. B.(talk) 16:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I checked jawiki links (currently two) but they are relevant to the article, while their legitimacy are uncertain (a fansite to an artist and a school activity club to that school). I'm afraid we remove relevant links through cleaning up. --Aphaia 23:54, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

overflow: <space> auto; <space> height:

Please ignore the <space> tags, I had to put them in to get past the filter. I don't know why this particular string has been blacklisted, as I've never seen it used in a spam attack. This string (as part of a <span> tag) is quite legitimate on any User page and I use it to great effect on mine. Unfortunately I keep having to change this string in order to fool the filter so that I can save my User page. It is also preventing me from editing my Talk page as a whole as previous discussions mentioning this string are blocked by the filter.

I've had this problem, too. It's something in $wspamregex (or whatever it's called). The string is blacklisted because spam IPs apparently use it. I would suggest that you simply use the overflow items in a different order.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

avoiding blacklist through section editing

An editor at the new English Wikipedia blacklist states that they can get around the blacklist by section editing, which is apparently not checked. Can anyone confirm this and, if correct, take whatever steps are needed to rectify the loophole? Thanks, BanyanTree 09:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Viartis.net

This site has been blacklisted before on two occasions. The site is the brainchild and plaything of Keith Bridgeman, a British man who claims to be the world's expert on Parkinson's disease. He initially edited enwiki as en:User:General Tojo, but was blocked for personal attacks, pushing his own theories without discussion, and spamming URLs to his website. He has taken to using innumerable sockpuppets to achieve the same goals, as well as reverting all the recent edits of any editor who dares to challenge him. Needless to say, he remains under a community ban. en:WP:TOJO is a summary of his malversations.

User:XX7 has made representations in the past that the link is bona fide. It is not. I should point out that en:User:XX7 is blocked on enwiki for behaviour consistent with TOJO activity.

It is vital that viartis.net is added to the blacklist and remains there for good. JFW 21:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Joao Gilberto

I keep trying to leave a note on this talk page and every time I do so I am told I can't because a site linked on the page (bossa nova.net) is blacklisted. 144.92.184.173 17:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Just delete the blacklisted link or disable it by stripping the "http://" --A. B.(talk) 21:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

European Megalithic Culture

Sorry, I have no idea which page you are talking. As red link suggested, I am only sure we have no such article on this website. Please specify which wiki you are concerned. Thanks. --Aphaia 04:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)